Floor mats for use with entryways in commercial buildings must satisfy a variety of special needs not necessarily present in residential buildings. For instance, it is desirable that a commercial floor mat inside the entrance of a retail store or office building be capable of removing debris such as snow and mud from the shoes of patrons as they traverse the mat. It is also desirable that such commercial floor mats be capable of accommodating large amounts of rainwater from the shoes and cloths of patrons without becoming soaked or wet. Finally, a commercial floor mat must provide continuous friction in any weather condition and must be able to support the heavy weight of people and merchandise as they traverse the entrance.
To meet the above and other needs, a variety of commercial floor mats have been developed and are part of the prior art. Perhaps the most ubiquitous of these commercial floor mats is the so-called roll-up floor mat or roll-up floor grate. The term “roll-up floor mat” will be used in the present discussion. In general, roll-up floor mats are designed to fit within a shallow rectangular well formed in the floor of a commercial building just inside an entrance. While there are a number of variations, these mats typically are formed by a plurality of closely spaced parallel aluminum rails, each of which is connected to its neighbors by means of an articulating joint. The articulating joints hold the rails in place with respect to one another, allow the mat to conform to variations in the floor of the well, and, perhaps most importantly, permit the mat to be rolled up upon itself into a compact configuration when necessary for cleaning or replacement. The articulating hinges that connect adjacent rails together usually are provided with openings that allow water, melting snow, and other debris collected from the shoes of patrons to pass through the mat for collection in the shallow rectangular well in which it rests. It is at least partially for this reason that such floor mats sometimes are referred to as floor grates.
The patent literature is replete with examples of roll-up commercial floor mats of the type discussed above. U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,110 of Arens, for example, discloses a commercial door mat with a multiplicity of parallel profiled bars, each having a generally U-shape with upstanding flanges interconnected at their lower ends by a horizontal web. A tread assembly fits in every other channel formed by the upstanding flanges. U.S. Pat. No. 4,568,587 of Blazer discloses a roll-up floor mat with rigid rails interconnected with elongated H-shaped flexible hinges. U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,245 of Blazer et al. discloses a floor mat of similar construction wherein the flexible hinges are further formed with feet that underlie the edges of the aluminum rails to cushion impact. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,804 of Williams, the articulating hinges are formed by elongated rod and socket joints and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,392 of Green, the aluminum rails are connected together along the undersides of their edges by flexible U-shaped hinge members, which also form feet that support the rails.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 6,434,779 of Bartlett et al. discloses a roll-up commercial floor mat wherein adjacent aluminum rails are connected together with flexible connector members. Each rail has a pair of legs depending from its lower surface and each connector member has a pair of upwardly facing U-shaped sockets configured and positioned to receive the legs of adjacent rails for securing the rails flexibly together. The legs and sockets have interengaging shoulders that retain the legs in the sockets once they are inserted during fabrication. The shoulders are necessary in part because the connector members are made of plastic and the walls that form the sockets tend to spread out under stress. Without the shoulders, the connector members of Bartlet et al. would easily be dislodged from the rails. Even with the shoulders, the sockets can spread under stress and the connector members become dislodged.
Roll-up commercial floor mats, such as those disclosed in the above patents, have proven somewhat successful in the applications for which they are designed. Nevertheless, they are still plagued with various problems and shortcomings inherent in their respective designs. As mentioned above, for example, the floor mat of Bartlett et al. can suffer from dislodgement of the legs of the rails from the sockets of the connector members under certain circumstances. It is perhaps for this reason that Bartlett et al. teach a pair of bendable anchor tabs extruded along the bottom side of each rail that can be bent outwardly against the outer walls of the sockets to prevent such dislodgement. Other prior art mats are difficult to assemble for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that some require assembly of adjacent rails and interconnecting hinges by sliding these components longitudinally together. This requires large amounts of room, is labor intensive, and inefficient.
Accordingly, there is a persistent need for a roll-up commercial floor mat that is easy, quick, and efficient to assemble, that does not suffer from dislodgement of rails and connecting hinge members, does not require ancillary anchor mechanisms to maintain attachment of the components, and that is attractive and easily rollable into a compact configuration. It is to the provision of such a roll-up floor mat that the present invention is primarily directed.